Hearing All the Way Down

Deuteronomy 11:13 · Infinitive absolute + finite verb · 2026-09-10

וְ הָיָ֗ה אִם שָׁמֹ֤עַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל מִצְוֹתַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם הַ יֹּ֑ום לְ אַהֲבָ֞ה אֶת יְהוָ֤ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶם֙ וּ לְ עָבְדֹ֔ו בְּ כָל לְבַבְכֶ֖ם וּ בְ כָל נַפְשְׁכֶֽם

And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

The KJV's 'if ye shall hearken diligently' sounds like a solemn instruction to pay careful attention — a strong verb, dressed up with an adverb.

But there is no separate word for 'diligently' in the Hebrew. What stands there is shamoa tishme'un — literally 'hearing, you shall hear.' The verb shama, 'to hear,' appears twice back to back: once as an infinitive absolute (shamoa), which has no tense or subject of its own, and once as the finite verb (tishme'un), fully conjugated, second person plural, future tense. Hebrew doesn't add an adverb to intensify a verb — it doubles the verb against itself. English has to flatten this into one word plus a modifier, because English has no comparable grammatical slot for a verb standing beside its own bare root.

This is not decoration. The doubling makes hearing total — not partial attention but hearing that hears, obedience that obeys all the way through. It closes off the possibility of a half-hearing that nods at the commandments while drifting elsewhere. The grammar itself insists that the kind of listening God asks for has no remainder left unheard.

And this is exactly the God who has spoken to be heard this way. He does not issue commands into the air and hope some of the words land. He doubles his own address to secure it — a hearing-hearing love that mirrors the wholehearted love and service the verse itself commands: all your heart, all your soul. The grammar of the command matches the shape of the God who gives it — nothing halved, nothing held back. To worship this God is to meet a voice that means to be fully heard because it fully means what it says.

Today

Before you open Scripture today, say aloud: 'Let me hear this hearing' — then read one paragraph slowly enough to notice if you were listening with your whole attention or only half of it.